About this time I was subjected to a severe trial. If the Spirit of the Lord rested upon a brother or sister in meeting, and they glorified God by praising him, some raised the cry of mesmerism. And if it pleased the Lord to give me a vision in meeting, some would say, “It is excitement and mesmerism.” Grieved and desponding, I often went alone to some retired place to pour out my soul before Him who invites the weary and heavy laden to come and find rest. As my faith claimed the promises, Jesus seemed very near. The sweet light of heaven shone around me, and there have I been taken off in vision. Then I would relate what God had revealed to me alone, where no earthly influence could affect me; but I was told by some that I mesmerized myself, and that those who lived the nearest to God were most liable to be deceived by Satan. According to this teaching, our only safety from delusion was to remain quite a distance from God in a backslidden state. O, thought I, has it come to this, that those who honestly go to God alone to plead his promises, and to claim his salvation, are to be charged with being under the foul influence of mesmerism? Do we ask our kind Father in heaven for bread, only to receive a stone or a scorpion? These things wounded my spirit, and wrung my soul in keen anguish, well nigh to despair, while many would have me believe that there was no Holy Spirit, and that all the exercises that holy men of God have experienced, were only mesmerism or the deceptions of Satan.
(2SG 57.1)
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